Global Privacy Notice
Effective Date: November 30, 2021
Mercer believes strongly in protecting your privacy. This Privacy Notice (the “Notice”) applies to our online surveys and our services that link to or post this Privacy Notice (collectively, the “Services”). This Privacy Notice is intended to inform you of the ways in which we collect personal information, the way we use your personal information, how and why we share that information, and the ways in which we protect it.
Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our privacy practices. Let us know if you have any questions by contacting us at: privacycoordinator@mercer.com for assistance.
Since we may change this Privacy Notice, we recommend that you check the current version available from time to time. If we make changes to this Privacy Notice, we will update the “Effective Date” at the top of the page. If there are significant changes, you will be provided with appropriate notice. Your continued use of the Services constitutes your agreement to the effective Privacy Notice.
WHAT INFORMATION DOES THIS PRIVACY NOTICE COVER?
This Notice describes how we may collect, use, share, and keep information about you that we get about you. We gather information if you:
- Visit or use our Services or apps;
- Receive, send, or reply to electronic communications from us;
- content;
- Take a survey;
- Create an account as an employer or third party.
WHAT DATA DO WE COLLECT?
The information that you provide to us or that we collect or receive about you may depend on how you interact with us and in which capacity. Most of Mercer’s collection related to surveys is voluntary. Generally, we may collect the following information about you:
- contact information such as your name, email address, and phone number;
- sensitive information such as your date of birth, gender, and ethnic background;
- employment information such as employee title, employment district, and team leader;
- general survey information including information in comment boxes.
Information Provided by You, Your Representatives or Third Parties
We collect information from you; your employer; business partners; and other third parties who have an interest in surveying your satisfaction with their services. You might provide this information when you take a survey; create and manage an account; or communicate with us. In addition, your employer or someone acting on their behalf may provide us with information about you so we can contact you about our services and surveys.
Employers or third parties supplying us with personal information about other people or employees, represent that they have the authority to provide this information on their behalf. In these instances, they further represent that the individuals to whom this information relates have been informed of and understand the reason(s) for them providing or us obtaining the information, the manner in which this information will be used and disclosed, and have consented to such use and disclosure.
Survey Open Text Field
Our surveys may offer you the opportunity to provide written comments or elaborate about certain responses. We request that you do not provide information that may personally identify you or others when writing in the comment section. It is your responsibility to refrain from posting or sharing such information.
HOW DO WE USE THE DATA WE COLLECT?
We use your personal information to:
- verify your identity, when appropriate;
- provide you with products and services you request;
- allow you to manage the services you requested;
- conduct research, statistical analysis, survey/demographical interpretation, and other data studies based on the data collected;
- contact you when necessary and to respond to your requests and inquiries;
- fulfill legal and regulatory requirements;
- analyze and improve services and evaluate the effectiveness of our surveys and research and overall services.
Most of our studies are conducted with data that has been aggregated and/or de-identified. In a significant number of cases, we are unable to re-identify the data once unique identifiers have been removed and/or the data has been aggregated.
We may also use the information we collect and receive as otherwise described to you at the point of collection or pursuant to your consent.
WITH WHOM DO WE SHARE YOUR DATA?
We may share data with the employer or third party who requested the survey. We may also share your information to assist with or to provide any service you authorized, or provide other services requested by your employer, or otherwise as described in this Privacy Notice or when we have your consent. We may share this information with:
- your employer;
- our affiliates, subsidiaries, or third-party service providers that have been retained to perform services on our behalf or on behalf of your employer, or as authorized by your employer.
We may also share information in association with the consideration, negotiation, or completion of a corporate transaction in which we are acquired by or merged with another company or we sell, liquidate, or transfer all or a portion of our assets.
Third parties to whom we disclose information are required by law and/or contractual requirements to keep your personal information confidential and secure. These parties may not use or disclose it except as reasonably necessary to provide services to you, on our behalf, on behalf of your employer, or to comply with or as permitted by applicable law.
We do not rent, sell, or otherwise disclose your information to unaffiliated third parties for their own marketing, unless so authorized by you, or your employer.
We may disclose and/or process your personal information without your prior permission, as permitted by law, including instances when we have a good faith belief that it is necessary to: (a) protect the legal rights, safety, and security of Mercer, our affiliates and business partners, and users of our Services; (b) respond to claims of suspected or actual illegal activity; (c) respond to an audit or investigate a complaint or security threat; or (d) comply with law or legal process, or a request for cooperation by a government or other entity.
We may share information that is not reasonably likely to identify you personally for any commercially legitimate business purpose.
FOR HOW LONG DO WE RETAIN YOUR INFORMATION?
We will retain your personal information for as long as is necessary for the processing purpose(s) for which it was collected and any other permitted linked purpose (for example where we are required to retain personal information for longer than the purpose for which we originally collected it in order to comply with certain regulatory requirements). Our retention periods are based on business needs and your information that is no longer needed is either de-identified (and de-identified information is retained) or securely destroyed.
WHAT RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS DO YOU HAVE WITH RESPECT TO YOUR DATA?
Accessing and Correcting Your Information
Keeping your information accurate and up-to-date is very important; whenever possible we will provide you with an opportunity to correct inaccurate or outdated information. However, bear in mind that if the data has been de-identified and/or aggregated it may not be possible for Mercer to track down your personal information. If you have questions or concerns regarding changes to your personal information please contact us at: privacycoordinator@mercer.com.
SOME OTHER MATTERS
Steps We Take to Protect Your Information
All information submitted by or on behalf of you may be collected, stored, and processed in countries other than the one in which you reside, including, but not limited to, the United States.
We restrict access to your personal information to those employees of ours, our affiliates, and third-party service providers who reasonably need it to provide products or services. We have implemented physical, administrative, and technical safeguards to protect your personal information from unauthorized access. However, as effective as our security measures are, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of these systems, nor can we guarantee that information supplied by you or on your behalf cannot be intercepted while being transmitted over the Internet.
Does This Privacy Notice Apply to International Users?
This Privacy Notice is provided in accordance with and subject to U.S. law. If you access this Notice from a location outside the United States, you agree that your use is subject to the terms of this Privacy Notice.
If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA), in order to provide our Site and services to you, we may send and store your personal information (also commonly referred to as personal data) outside of the EEA, including to the United States. Your personal information may be accessed by staff or suppliers in, transferred to, and/or stored at, a destination outside the country in which you are located, whose data protection laws may be of a lower standard than those in your country. We will, in all circumstances, safeguard personal information as set out in this Privacy Notice.
Where we transfer personal information from inside the European Economic Area to outside the EEA, we are required to take specific measures to safeguard the relevant personal information. Certain countries outside the EEA have been approved by the European Commission as providing essentially equivalent protections to EEA data protection laws and therefore no additional safeguards are required to export personal information to these jurisdictions. In countries which are not subject to this approval (see the full list here: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/international-transfers/adequacy/index_en.htm), we will establish legal grounds justifying such transfer, such as MMC Binding Corporate Rules, model contractual clauses, or other legal grounds permitted by applicable legal requirements.
Please contact us at: privacycoordinator@mercer.com if you would like to see a copy of the specific safeguards applied to the export of your personal information.
If you have specific questions or concerns you may contact our EU Data Privacy Officer Sabrina Salhi at GDPRLegal@mmc.com.
EEA Consent
In situations where special categories of data (such as political opinions, religious views, sex life, etc.) is collected we may request your consent. You may deny consent and choose not to provide the information requested, such decision will not affect your opportunity to participate in the survey. If you consent you still have a right to withdraw consent at any time. However, if the data has been de-identified and/or aggregated we may be unable to properly identify your survey, thereby preventing you from withdrawing consent. Data Subjects whose data has been de-identified within the meaning of the GDPR cannot claim the right to withdraw consent because their data can no longer be used to identify them.
In addition to your consent, we also rely on the need to perform our contractual obligations as well as our legitimate interests as our legal bases for processing your personal data under European data protection law.
EEA Rights
If you have any questions in relation to our use of your personal information, you should contact us at: privacycoordinator@mercer.com. Under certain conditions, you have the right to require us to:
1.) provide you with further details on the use we make of your information;
2.) provide you with a copy of information that you have provided to us;
3.) update any inaccuracies in the personal information we hold;
4.) delete any personal information that we no longer have a lawful ground to use;
5.) object to any processing that Mercer justifies on the “legitimate interests” ground unless our reasons for undertaking that processing outweigh any prejudice to your data protection rights;
6.) object to direct marketing (including any profiling for such purposes); and
7.) restrict how we use your information while we consider your inquiry;
Your exercise of these rights is subject to certain exemptions to safeguard the public interest (e.g. the maintenance of legal privilege). If you exercise any of these rights we will check your entitlement and respond in most cases within a month.
If you are not satisfied with our use of your personal information or our response to any exercise of these rights you have the right to complain to the data protection regulator in your country.
Business Transactions
In the event we sell some or all of our assets or go through other business transactions, such as mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcy, or reorganizations, it is possible your personal information could be one of the assets sold or transferred in connection with the transaction. We may disclose and/or transfer your personal information to a third-party purchaser in these circumstances.
Children
Our surveys are not intended for children, and we do not knowingly collect, use, or disclose information from children under the age of thirteen (13) years old. In an instance where such information was collected, it would be purely accidental and unintentional. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 13, we will promptly delete that information. If you believe we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 13, please email us at: privacycoordinator@mercer.com .
California Resident Privacy Notice
Effective: January 1, 2020
Scope of this Privacy Notice
Mercer (“We”) strive to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the personal information with which we are entrusted. This California Resident Privacy Notice explains the personal information we collect or process about California residents in connection with the site, application, product, or service that links to this Privacy Notice (the “Service”), how we use, share, and protect that personal information, and what your rights are with respect to your personal information that we gather and process.
In this California Resident Privacy Notice, "personal information" has the same meaning as under the California Consumer Protection Act (“CCPA”): information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household, Personal information does not include information that has been de-identified or aggregated.
Please also note that in certain cases, we may collect your personal information for the Service pursuant to a contract we have with a commercial client (our “Client”). In such circumstances, we may be acting as a “service provider” and are obligated to process the personal information we collect or are provided in connection with the Service in accordance with instructions from or the contract with our Client, which is the business ultimately responsible for determining how your personal information will be handled. Accordingly, if you are using the Service in connection with your role as an employee of our Client, or by virtue of some other relationship with, our Client, we encourage you to review that Client’s privacy notice to understand the full scope of how your personal information will be handled. Further, in any case where we are acting as a service provider to a Client, if you or your authorized agent (together referred to hereinafter, where applicable, as “you”) wish to exercise any rights that may be available to you under certain data privacy laws (for example, the right to access or deletion under the California Consumer Privacy Act if you are a resident of California as described below), you should direct your request to our Client, who is the party responsible for receiving, assessing, and responding to your requests, as we do not have any obligation, and, notwithstanding anything in this Privacy Notice to the contrary, may elect not, to respond to your requests. If you are not certain whether we are acting as a service provider to a Client in your particular circumstance, please contact us through one of the methods described at the end of this Privacy Notice.
What Personal Information Do We Collect and Share, and For What Purpose?
In the past 12 months, we may have collected and shared the following types of personal information from users of the Service:
| Categories of PI | Examples / Description | Categories of Sources of PI | Business or Commercial Purpose for Collection of PI | Categories of third parties with whom we share the PI |
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| Government-issued identifiers |
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| Other Unique Identifiers |
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| Contact Information |
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| Individual Attributes |
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| Financial Information |
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| Health Information |
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| Policy Information |
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| Professional or Employment-related records |
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| Commercial Information |
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| Audio, video, or visual information |
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We may also use or share de-identified information that is not reasonably likely to identify you for commercially legitimate business purposes.
We do not sell personal information to any third parties, and have not done so in the preceding 12 months.
Your Rights as a California Resident
Under California law, some California residents have specific rights regarding their personal information. These rights are subject to certain exceptions as described below. Further, if we have collected or processed your personal information in connection with a product or service we are providing to our Client that is a company, partnership, sole proprietorship, nonprofit or government agency, and you are an employee, owner, director, officer, or contractor of that entity, rights 1-3 below are not available to you until at least January 1, 2021.
When required, we will respond to most requests within 45 days, unless it is reasonably necessary for us to extend our response time.
1. Right to Disclosure of Information
You have the right to request that we disclose certain information regarding our practices with respect to personal information. If you submit a valid and verifiable request and we confirm your identity and/or authority to make the request, we will disclose to you any of the following at your direction:
- The categories of personal information we have collected about you in the last 12 months.
- The categories of sources for the personal information we have collected about you in the last 12 months.
- Our business or commercial purpose for collecting that personal information.
- The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
- The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you.
- If we sold your personal information for a business purpose, a list of the personal information types that each category of recipient purchased.
- If we disclosed your personal information to a third party for a business purpose, a list of the personal information types that each category of recipient received.
2. Right to Delete Personal Information
You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. If you submit a valid and verifiable request and we can confirm your identity and/or authority to make the request, we will determine if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service providers to:
- Complete a transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you
- Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities;
- Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
- Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law;
- Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 seq.);
- Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information's deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research's achievement, if you previously provided informed consent;
- Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us;
- Comply with a legal obligation; and/or
- Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.
If none of the above retention conditions apply, we will delete your personal information from our records and direct our service providers to do the same.
How to exercise the above rights
To exercise your rights* to disclosure or deletion described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by emailing us at: privacycoordinator@mercer.com. or click on the link here to submit an individual rights request.
Alternatively, you may call us at 855-518-4620.
*Please note that, as described above, in certain cases we may collect your personal information as a service provider pursuant to a contract we have with a commercial Client to provide the Service. In any case where we are acting as a service provider to a Client, you should direct your requests to exercise your rights available under data privacy laws to our Client, who is the party responsible for receiving, assessing, and responding to your requests. As a service provider, we do not have any obligation, and, notwithstanding anything in this Privacy Notice to the contrary, may elect not, to respond to your requests.
Only you or a person legally authorized to act on your behalf may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information.
You may make a verifiable consumer request for access or deletion no more than twice within a 12-month period. The verifiable request must:
- Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative. Depending on the nature of your request and the sensitivity of the information we hold about you, we may ask you to confirm various data elements we already have on file such as your mailing address and phone number, or, in case of sensitive personal information, we may require you to submit a copy of a government issued identification.
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- Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.
You will not be required to create an account with us in order to submit a verifiable request, though we may communicate with you about your request via a pre-established account if applicable. However, in order to safeguard the personal information in our possession, if we cannot verify your identity or authority to act on another’s behalf, we will be unable to comply with your request. We will only use personal information you provide when submitting a verifiable request to confirm your identity or authority, or to fulfill your request.
3. Right to Opt out of Sales of Your Personal Information
As a California resident, you have the right to direct a business that sells your personal information to third parties not to sell your personal information. This right is referred to as “the right to opt-out.”
Because we do not sell your personal information, we do not provide any mechanism for you to exercise the right to opt out.
4. Right to Non-Discrimination
You may exercise your rights under the CCPA without discrimination. For example, unless the CCPA provides an exception, we will not:
- Deny you goods or services;
- Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties;
- Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services; or
- Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.
We may offer you financial incentives to provide us with personal information that is reasonably related to the information’s value. This could result in different prices, rates, or quality levels for our products or services. Any financial incentive we offer will be described in written terms that explain the material aspects of the financial incentive program. You must opt-in to any financial incentive program and may revoke your consent at any time by contacting us as indicated below.
5. Direct Marketing and Do Not Track Signals
Under California’s “Shine the Light” law, California residents may request and obtain a notice once a year about the personal information we shared with other businesses for their own direct marketing purposes. Such a notice will include a list of the categories of personal information that were shared (if any) and the names and addresses of all third parties with which the personal information was shared (if any). The notice will cover the preceding calendar year. To obtain such a notice, please contact us as described below. In addition, under this law you are entitled to be advised how we handle “Do Not Track” browser signals. Because there currently is not an industry or legal standard for recognizing or honoring DNT signals, we do not honor Do Not Track requests at this time.
How Long Do We Keep Your Information?
We will retain your personal information for as long as is necessary for the processing purpose(s) for which it was collected and other permitted purpose(s), including retention of personal information pursuant to any applicable contract, law or regulation. Our retention periods vary based on business, legal and regulatory needs.
What Steps Do We Take to Protect Your Information?
Our surveys, and all information submitted by or on behalf of you through our surveys may be collected, stored, and processed in countries other than the one in which you reside, including, but not limited to, the United States.
We restrict access to your personal information to only those employees of ours, our affiliates, and third-party service providers who reasonably need it to provide products and/or services. We have implemented physical, administrative, and technical safeguards to protect your personal information from unauthorized access. However, as effective as our security measures are, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of these systems, nor can we guarantee that information supplied by you or on your behalf cannot be intercepted while being transmitted over the Internet.
Questions or Concerns
If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints about this Privacy Notice, or our privacy practices in general, please email us at: privacycoordinator@mercer.com.